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Edgar Vhera
Agriculture Specialist Writer
Cottco has delivered woolpacks to most cotton growing areas while the payment process of the delivered crop has improved.
The company is using various methods of payment.
Cotton Producers and Marketers Association secretary general Mr Enerst Chigaba yesterday said farmers had over the past weeks expressed concern over the payment modalities and woolpack shortages.
“Farmers are not happy with Cottco which has reneged on the payment of 85 percent of seed cotton purchases in United States dollars and 15 percent in local currency at the interbank rank.
“They are only paying US$20 per bale via Mukuru which in Gokwe South has only two branches at Gokwe Centre and Manoti,” said Mr Chigaba.
Mr Chigaba said farmers were spending about US$7 one-way trip to access the US$20, worse still some get the money after a couple of days.
He said farmers had no woolpacks and their seed cotton was in danger of quality deterioration, fire or theft before being delivered to the collection points.
Cottco acting chief accounting officer Mr Munyaradzi Chikasha said farmers should not worry about woolpacks as they have distributed them to most areas while some will receive theirs tomorrow (today).
Mr Chikasha said in addition to Mukuru, there was OneMoney, Ecocash, Access Finance while Innbucks was on the ground setting up structures to enhance farmer payments.
He clarified that the US$20 per bale were advance payment to farmers and it will be deducted when the full farmer payments are effected.
He said the problem was not on Mukuru as sometimes they deployed their officers to the ground but they were not able to get funds from Cottco resulting in increased operating costs for them.
“The challenge with payment is a result of general liquidity constrains in the economy at the moment.
“Cottco has been unable to avail funds to Mukuru consistently for disbursement to farmers,” said Mr Chikasha.
Highlighting the severity of liquidity pressures Mr Chikasha said for a US$7 million facility they only managed to get US$500 000 from their bankers while on another facility only US$960 000.
This year’s cotton output is expected to double from last season.
“Last year we produced 46, 7million kg of seed cotton against a target of 120 million kg. This year we are expecting 100 million kg of seed cotton against our target of 120 million,” said Mr Chikasha.
Meanwhile statistics from the Agricultural Marketing Authority (AMA) show that seed cotton intake as at June 8 stood at 11, 646 791 kg valued at US$3, 9 million and $3, 5 billion.
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